Description
Word Count
1,500 words (+/-10%)
Learning outcomes
CLO 1, 3
Rubric/Marking Criteria
The marking rubric is posted on Course Canvas.
Assessment Criteria
This assessment will measure your ability to:
· critically analyse your chosen leader’s effectiveness, leadership traits, behaviours, and use of power.
· understand relevant leadership theories, models and concepts referred to in your research and reflection
· acknowledge sources of information (format, quality and quantity of references)
· reflect on the guest industry speaker’s experience
Task
Overview
You are required to critically reflect on the guest industry speaker’s presentation that will outline challenging issues in leadership. Then, you will use that knowledge to select a person whom you consider to be a successful and effective leader and analyse their leadership traits, behaviours, and use of power.
The purpose of this assessment is for you to critically reflect on the guest industry speaker’s experience so that you can draw from their experiences the qualities of leadership that you can apply to a leader of your choosing. Through critical reflection, you will connect those leadership qualities to your own leadership or potential leadership qualities in order to cultivate them as part of your leadership development. This assessment will challenge you to research and apply leadership concepts, models and theories that are covered in this course.
Assessment details
In this assessment, you will critically reflect on the guest industry speaker’s experience, synthesise your reflection, and apply it to the leadership qualities of your chosen leader. You will be challenged to research and apply leadership theories, models and concepts that you have so far learnt in this course.
By critically reflecting, analysing and applying leadership theories and models in this assessment, you will build your leadership knowledge and understanding. Then, you will be able to act on leadership feedback that enhances your leadership capabilities so that you are ready to respond to opportunities for leadership development in Assessment 3.
This assessment has three stages:
1. Listen to the presentation provided by the Guest Industry Speaker (given below), who will outline some of the difficulties that leaders face. You will need to critically reflect on the qualities needed to be an effective leader, and the relevant models and theories. For more information about how to write a critical reflection (and how it is different to a personal reflection), check out ‘RMIT Learning Lab: Writing an academic reflection’ in the Resources section of this document. Please note critical reflection needs to be embedded within the three questions given below (Q1, Q2, and Q3) and not be added as a separate document.
2. Using the knowledge gained from your reflection, select a person whom you consider to be a successful and effective leader. This person could be:
· someone you have worked with
· someone you have interacted with in person
· a person you judge to be a good leader
· someone you have read about
· a public figure.
3. Research and identify your chosen person’s leadership traits, behaviours and use of power. Then answer the following questions:
Q1: What makes your chosen person a good leader? (~200 words)
Q2: How do you perceive this person’s leadership traits and behaviours to be effective? (~1,000 words)
Q3: How does the person use power and influence to be an effective leader? (~300 words)
Your assessment must have at minimum 6 academic references from academic sources such as peer-reviewed journal articles and books. Websites, such as Wikipedia and blogs can provide a useful starting point for general details. However, these sites do not contain academic content, are not peer-reviewed, and are therefore not considered as strong sources. They are not acceptable, and will not be counted in the minimum references required.
Correct and thorough referencing and the quality of your sources will also be considered in the evaluation of your assignment. Please ensure that your spelling, grammar and syntax are correct before you submit your personal reflection.
EUROPEAN INDUSTRY DIALOGUE: Global Industry Mindsets on Contemporary Leadership
Ms Amber Williamson,
Ms Williamsom is the Founder and CEO of Digital Willow runs a London based company, operating in over 50 countries around the globe. Digital Willow helps businesses solve marketing challenges like increasing leads, exporting products in a new country, growing sales and maintaining customer retention. Her company embraces technology to solve these problems, mastering channels such as social media, search engines, emails, automation and programmatic buying.
Transcription.pdf Download Transcription.pdf Pre-Recorded Industry Dialogue Session
Week 3 Video – Pre-Recorded Industry Dialogue Session
Assessment structure
The assessment should use the following structure.
Title page
Table of contents
Introduction (includes your leader background information)
Body with headings and sub-headings (e.g. Q1, Q2, Q3), (critical reflection on guest speaker embedded within these questions).
Conclusion
References
Note: Sections 1, 2, 3 (your leader background information part) 5, and 6 are not included in the word count.
Papers must have in-text referencing and a reference list in the RMIT Harvard referencing style. Papers with no in-text referencing and/or no reference list will lose 10 marks of the 30 available marks. See Course Canvas for more details.
Resources
The following resources may help you in this assessment:
· RMIT Learning Lab: Writing an academic reflectionLinks to an external site.: Incorporate the guidelines in the academic reflection in the critical reflection as you will need to incorporate academic sources in your work.
· Management, Human Resources and Entrepreneurship library guideLinks to an external site.: This library guide provides a list of useful journals and databases that hold academic articles on leadership.
Referencing guidelines
Use RMIT HarvardLinks to an external site. referencing style for this assessment.
You must acknowledge all the courses of information you have used in your assessments.
Refer to the RMIT Easy CiteLinks to an external site. referencing tool to see examples and tips on how to reference in the appropriated style. You can also refer to the library referencing page for more tools such as EndNote, referencing tutorials and referencing guides for printing.
Unformatted Attachment Preview
RMIT Europe
Global Industry Mindsets on
Contemporary Leadership Transcription
Amber Williamson
– Hello everyone. Welcome back to another session of European Industry Dialogue. My name is
Dr. Nuttawuth Muenjohn, the Course Coordinator for the leadership course at the School of
Management. This Leadership course is offered, not only to students in Australia, but also in
Singapore, Vietnam, China and RMIT online. So I would like to welcome you to another session of
Global Industry Mindset On Contemporary Leadership. The purpose of the session is for the
leaders from our European industry partners, to share their thoughts, their experience and
knowledge on effective leadership. In this session, our industry partners will explain how having a
global mindset influences leadership practice. And will talk to you about how global leadership
skills contribute to leadership effectiveness. Other topic today is leadership personalities and
effective leaders. It is my great pleasure to have Amber Williamson as our European Industry
speaker with us today. Just a little bit about our guest. Amber is the founder and CEO of Digital
Willow, a London based company operating in over 50 countries around the world. Digital Willow
helps businesses solve marketing challenges, like exporting products in a new country, growing
sales and maintaining customer retention. Her company used technology to solve these problems.
Mastering channels such as social media, search engines, emails and programmatic buying.
Amber was also awarded Best Woman in Business in 2018. We also have Dr. Alan Montague
joining us on the panel today. As you know, Alan is an expert in skill shortage and government
policy. He has extensive experience in leadership goals in the academic field as well as
government sector for the last 40 years. So thank you very much again, Amber and Alan for joining
me today.
– Yes, Pleasure to be here.
– Thank you.
– Indeed it is.
– Thanks. So next I would like to invite Amber to talk about her background, her company and her
career becoming a CEO of the companies. Thank you Amber. I hand it over to you.
– Okay. Thank you very much for that lovely introduction and very nice to meet you all albeit
virtually. And so yeah, I’ll tell you a little bit about me. I can’t pack that many years into a short
conversation otherwise we’ll be here all day, but let me see if I can pull out some of the highlights. I
actually started my career back at Channel 10 in Australia. So Melbourne and Australia’s got a soft
spot in my heart. It was a sales role despite the fact that I’d studied marketing and advertising. And
I quickly found that I preferred the strategy side of things rather than the selling. And one of the
agencies I was working with at the time ended up head hunting me from Network 10. And so the
move made a lot of sense to me. But in saying that I look back to those days, those years in sales,
and they were invaluable because at the time I think I felt like sales was a bit of a nasty word. And
then along the years I’ve tried to sort of nurture that, those skills in me because if you’ve ever read
the book… What’s his name? Daniel Pink, To Sell Is Human. He illustrates how in so many things
Page 1 of 10
RMIT Europe
that we do in life, you’re selling, if indeed selling is persuading and convincing and influencing. So
anyway I digress a bit, but I’ve lent on that to experience early on, particularly as I’ve become CEO
later in life, but let’s go back to OMD. At the time I was working on Campbell’s snack foods and
McDonald’s, some excellent clients for career perhaps not for the waistline, but the agency was run
by a wonderful man called Mark Code. And I have to say he was my first experience of a really
excellent leader. And I think as you go through your career people like that make an impact on you
and you don’t forget and they start to craft how you yourself become a leader in the future. So for
example, I have distinct memories of Mark making sure that there was a lot of fun in the office, but
also clear boundaries of when it was time to knuckle down and do the work. And I think within that
broad framework of support, but also rules, your career can start to flourish. And I did end up
finding my own style. So after some happy years there, I had the urge to travel to London, this was
around 2007. It was an aspiration for me to work there being an incredible hub of excellence for
advertising and marketing in the world, doing a lot of first in market things. And it’s an interesting
moment when you leave a team that you really happy with and supported by and you’re sort of
flung into this overseas abyss and you think, “Goodness me, it’s a bit harder than I realized.” And I
had to make a choice. And it was for the people that are old enough to have seen the movie,
Sliding Doors, which is me, but maybe not everybody. There was this moment where I was
thinking, “Do I continue my career into the kind of consumer or personal angle?” Like looking at
consumer traits in marketing, “Or do I go and specialize in digital marketing?” And I got a lot of
advice on this and I encourage everyone that’s listening to do the same because when you’re in
the thick of it, it wasn’t as clear. But looking back on it, moving into digital marketing was definitely
the right choice. There was a skills shortage and there still is to some extent, certainly where the
world was heading. And the opportunities started coming in thick and fast once I got some really
specialized experience. I think the other thing about a big city like London is, unlike where I was in
Melbourne, you’re encouraged to specialize in something because it’s just the business is larger
and there’s a lot more people. So I loved my time in London. I had the opportunity to manage some
very big advertising accounts that you would have heard of like Honda and Cadbury and Revlon
and Green & Black Chocolate. I then went on to work with Louis Vuitton, Mary Hennessy Group of
course I think they’ve got 52 odd luxury brands. And then in 2010, I moved into a role at Universal
McCann, which was across EMEA. One of the again, great things about working in London is you
get the opportunity to work across international business. So this was EMEA is just short for
Europe, Middle East and Africa. And in this role I got to build a team pretty much from scratch
working on Burberry, on Xbox, Microsoft and MasterCard and Exxon. So I was a busy lady. And I
guess for those Xbox fans listening I got to launch the first Connect Console in 2010. And it sold
out in 60 days, 8 million units. We got a Guinness World Record for the fastest selling consumer
electronic device. And at the time that was faster than the iPad. So that was a big coup to get one
up on Apple. I think Microsoft as a company was an excellent one to be working with because they
did a lot of investment in training and I’ve worked with them for quite some time. I really enjoyed it,
I think. And I got the opportunity to work across lots of different countries. I think it was managing
digital services for about 90 countries and very big budgets when I left. And I think although I was
happy at the end there, I did have this sort of mission bubbling up within me for the last few years
that I wanted to create my own agency and create my own business and put my own stamp on the
world. Something that is not as easy to do when you’re working for a big multinational company.
And I think some of the great entrepreneurs and leaders I’ve met have these sort of poignant
moments in their lives where it sculptures their leadership style and it’s moved them to make
critical decisions that have sort of spurred them ahead. I distinctly remember one of them. I thought
I might tell you a little story about being at an agency at the time, not at Microsoft just to be clear,
but it was a horrible place to work and sometimes out of tough times, good things come, which is
why I want to tell this story because we had a team where I was feeling anxious to come to work. I
was frightened. If I spoke out, I would lose my job. And then to paint the picture, remember I’m
over in a new country. I don’t really have that support network built up as yet, it was early on, I
didn’t have a partner at the time. And my memories of the 2008 Financial crash were pretty real
still. People were still being made redundant. And I think when you’ve got that fear inside you,
Page 2 of 10
RMIT Europe
sociopath’s and leaders prey on that vulnerability and I really hope that nobody has that sort of
experience, but I fear that we may all across our years experience what bad leadership is like and
this was one of those times. I had a team and it wasn’t just me that was affected although I was the
direct reporting and it had created this sort of blame culture where everybody sort of said it was
somebody else’s fault and there was not a culture of telling the truth and you didn’t feel like you
could talk up and it was very toxic. There was lots of tears from lots of people, lots of people
thinking about what they were going to do if they should leave, that sort of thing. So I had, as I
said, this team and I knew I had a choice and it was a hard one. I had my own personal fear of
“Goodness, I don’t want to lose my job.” But then the other side thinking, “Well, this is not good
enough. And my team and nor I deserve to be treated like this.” So it took me a bit of time to build
up for it. But I did report him to HR and Simon Sinek says, “Good leaders make you feel safe.” And
yeah, he didn’t make us feel safe, but I knew that if I did nothing about it I was almost just as bad.
So yeah, going back to that character building moment, it was definitely a definition of good
leadership for me. I needed to dig deep. I needed to show my team how leaders should behave
and I needed to be brave and create that report in HR. Excuse me, and continue to support my
team with the empathy that they needed to get through it and support them if they decided to report
him as well. So in the end, there was eight people that were filing grievances and derailed by this
man. And I’d love to say that we were supported by the company but we weren’t. And in the end,
and I can’t talk about the exit but some people would say perhaps I lost that battle, but actually, I
think the experience kind of gave me this armor or this memory that I battled with bravery and
dignity. And I think getting through a tough time like that it just gives you the strength in the future
to think, “Well, I got through that. I did the right thing. How hard can this be?” And no kind of theory
can give you that experience. Sometimes you just got to go through the pain. And I must say that
team and I those eight people, we’re still in touch over the years and we’ve supported each other
over the years, which is another really lovely thing that came out of it. And I guess the main thing
that came out of it for me personally, was after obviously a period of recovery, I was determined to
make a really harmonious, happy place to work, a place where people would feel safe to speak out
and there’d be respect and there’d be laughter and Digital Willow was born, my company was born.
So yeah. So that’s that story, I think… I guess, where are we now? Fast forward, 10 years later, we
just had our 10th birthday in August which I honestly can’t believe, where did that go? But we’re
operating in 50 countries as you currently mentioned. And we’re in all sorts of sectors like FinTech,
retail, health, government, food and bev. And I very fortunate to be able to explore all sorts of
different industries in an agency doing digital marketing. There’s always things to do like expanding
our services. We’ve just built up our SEO offering. We’re looking at partnering with new companies,
developing talent, of course and finding new clients. And I think when you’re spinning lots of plates
as a leader, it is more difficult than I perhaps thought it was going to be. But I think you need a little
bit of that naivety. Otherwise I might not have done it. I might not have set up Digital Willow. So
yeah, I think there’s kind of 10 mantras that have helped me along the way that I thought I might
share with you guys, because sometimes when things are going great leadership is a lot easier,
but when things are going a bit tougher that’s when it’s not so easy and it’s at those moments
where you need to be the best version of yourself and you need to be a good leader consistently.
So I think sometimes having difficult conversations is one of the things that you want to steer away
from because you’re just tired and you’ve got a lot of other things that you want to get through
during the day. But yeah, so let’s go through these mantras rather. I think number one would be
not allowing anyone to treat me or my team with disrespect despite the paycheck. And this could
mean even firing a client because they are toxic or bad for the agency’s culture, because you have
to set an example of how you want people to…you know How behavior should be held within the
company. And that sounds easier than it is when you’re fighting for money in your business, but it’s
certainly important. Number two would be finding the balance between empathy, like being
everyone’s mate and understanding, and then putting the other hat on where you’re the driver. And
you’ve got to get stuff done. So you really want to enjoy your team’s company but at the same
time, there needs to be very clear boundaries. And number three would be facilitating an
environment of constant growth. That’s not for everyone, but there’s certain people in the team that
Page 3 of 10
RMIT Europe
want to be constantly learning. So you need to make sure those opportunities are there. And even
for yourself as a leader, I think if you weren’t curious, then you’re going to find the weight of
continuous problem solving really exhausting. So come to work each day with a sense of childlike
curiosity if you can. Number four would be giving difficult feedback. Something I’m still working on
myself because I think it’s human tendency to shy away from it. But what I’ve learned over the
years is that being clear is kind. And so sometimes you just need to say something and what you
think might be bad, difficult feedback somebody else thinks, “Oh yeah. Okay. We just needed to
hear it said.” And I think, I guess that leads on a little bit to number five which is having open
conversations around religion and cultures. London is such a wonderful place for diversity. it’s not
uncommon, really isn’t to be sitting in a room with like 10 different people and realizing that not a
single person’s come from the same country, which is so cool really. And it comes with all these
ideas and thoughts, but it also comes with it some different expectations and values and cultures.
So a few examples: I have a Danish woman in my team that in Denmark it’s very common to be
leaving at four o’clock. So that those last hours of the day, she sort of gets a bit techy and wants to
get out the door. And you can feel that energy around her. We have a Muslim man that we recently
hired and he said to me, “I want to be able to leave the office three times a day to go to the
mosque to pray.” And as a leader you want to be flexible and you want people to be individual, but
at the same time, how do you make sure that there is a fairness for everybody else? And so it’s a
constant sort of balancing act to get that dynamic right. Yeah. What else to tell you? I think we’re
on about number six now I think, but there’s a whole topic I could talk about for a while maybe later
on being a strong leader but still having an identity as a woman.
– Yeah.
– Particularly when you’re trying to figure out how you’re going to lead when for years you had male
bosses as well. There wasn’t that many direct reports that were men when I was coming through
the ranks. Number seven would be laughing together and celebrating the wins. This is so important
and during COVID we lost 70% of our revenue in a week and it wasn’t easy. And a lot of
businesses were hard, very effected. I promised not to make anyone redundant. And during that
time there wasn’t a lot of wins that we found, but we made a practice each morning when we had
our team get togethers, just for saying what we were grateful for. It was about as close as we could
get to celebrating and laughter at the time. And it’s really surprising if you just put your mind into a
mindset of, “I’m going to be grateful for what I’ve got.” Because there’s always more to go for but
there’s also an awful lot that we’ve all been blessed with, which is almost one side of the coin. The
other, I guess number eight would be the power of saying no. And what a power that can be. I think
we’ve all got a limited energy each day that you wake up with particularly as you get older, I found
that energy level goes down a little bit, sadly. But you can’t fit everything in and if you’re prone to
saying yes, which I am, you have to think of the cost of that if you’re doing forward thinking. And if
this decision is not necessarily the right one for the business like with that time, what could you be
doing instead? More recently I’ve had to say no around no we won’t do the job for that price
coming out of the COVID when people wanted very low prices. Not just because it’s not going to
make us money, but because of all the pressure it’s going to put on everybody, or no you can’t
work from home every day because I know in the end, it’s not going to be great for our company
culture. It doesn’t always make you popular but sometimes you have to do the right thing. Coming
to the end of this top 10 I think number nine is as a leader, everybody wants a bit of your time. So
you do tend to get kind of pressure from different sides all day long. And I average six to eight
meetings a day. And if somebody wants to have an ad hoc conversation with you, you have to sort
of smile your way through these meetings and realize that you need to make time for that person
and you need to actively listen even though in the back of your mind you’re thinking, “Good Lord.
I’m going to have to work late again tonight to fit this in.” Because you need to be present in the
meetings. And then yeah, I guess to finish off, I would say choosing the right feedback to listen to
and the right feedback to ignore, because sometimes it’s better to just move on. You can’t make
everybody happy. Yeah.
Page 4 of 10
RMIT Europe
– Thanks. Well that was, I mean it is just very interesting especially you talk about the toxic
obviously. And it is good suggestion can different points suggestion as well. Yeah. Alan, do you
have anything to perhaps comment or talk to Amber’s before I moved to the question? Yeah.
– Well, I am, that just about a half an hour went very quickly because I was totally absorbed in what
you were saying Amber, just totally absorbed. I think the person you were talking about in the toxic
environment, that person wasn’t a leader. Far from it, quite the reverse. And we’ve got that which
I’m not looking after the wellbeing of staff, staff getting probably counseling and so forth, but they’re
not very productive working under a regime like that is absolutely appalling and it’s costly to the
business.
– It certainly is.
– And then it’s just not productive. Businesses are there to make money and if people are at that
sort of environment. But then the other leader that you learned a lot from Mark, that was really
good. That’s some I share those experiences with you by looking at the good leaders. And I had
lots of people to observe and they didn’t know that I was observing, but you do learn. And that sort
of brings me to the next point that your 10 points, they’re brilliant points. I think they’re all
absolutely brilliant. And they’re so practical and so underpinned with wisdom and they emanate
from experience as well, blended with a sharp intelligence and the composure. So I just think that if
you got a job for me at your company? but it be a lot of students that would like to come to London
and work with you, but a number of our students again, go into positions like this. But what you’ve
told them is gold to sort of say, “Let’s do if it’s difficult, I’m going to be difficult.” Then I want to come
to that point when you’re having a difficult discussion, I would bet that you’re very organized and
take notes. So just speaking from experience and take a number of notes and think before you
speak before you’re having to talk to somebody that needs to be pulled a little bit into line, is that
the case?
– Yeah, 100%. I usually rehearse or figure out what I’m going to say before I go in there or what at
least set the intention very clearly in my mind, so that it’s not about discipline, it’s about where do
we get to next? You need to give the feedback, you need to be heard. They need to be heard, but
what do you want to get to out of that? You want them to get better and be the best version of
themselves. So, yeah.
– Well, I’m just hoping that our students download this because many of them are going to be in
leadership positions. So they may have just a couple of people to support, to supervise initially
then maybe 4, 5, 6, 10, 20, or 1019 like I had not all direct reports of course, but you do learn and
you have to have a bit of a thick skin because there’s no way known you’re going to keep all of
those people happy all the time. Many people I know when I was in that position thought that I was
absolutely crazy. they could have possibly been right. But I think that there’s just so many, if they
download it and they use this as training ongoing to listen to what you had to say, I think it’s going
to be very valuable in the future. And that’s the way that Nuttawuth designs this courses so that
they can take things with them, but we’ll have thousands of students watching this and again, next
year and the year after, and it’s just so extremely valuable and it reflects the ethos that comes
through and the ethics that come through in a lot of the textbooks. And also a lot of the research
that Nuttawuth has written and I’ve enjoyed reading that sort of reflects a lot of that in the
leadership and some of the stuff that I’ve read and researched as well. But it’s that composure
being productive, having to leave in temperament thinking before you speak.
– Oh goodness yes
Page 5 of 10
RMIT Europe
– Yeah. All of those things that you’re automatically doing, but I don’t think it’s automatic. I think it’s
that observation and so forth that your company is flourishing. And why is it flourishing? That’s a
question.
– Yes. I think that is very good reflection and learning from Amber’s presentation. Thank you very
much. Amber, I have three questions for you.
– Oh, good lord
– Okay. My first question, we just would like to listen to your thoughts about being a female leader.
So the question is how do you be a strong leader and remain true to your identities as a woman? Is
this still even an issue nowadays?
– Yeah. Whoo. How long have we got? No. Okay. I think unfortunately, still an issue. I think I was
taught, and I know I was taught, so I won’t be gentle going into it. I was taught my perception
certainly in my 20s that women are more emotional than men and there isn’t a place for this in the
workplace. This was like, everybody knew this in my mind back then. And to enforce this notion, I’d
been told I was too emotional. I was too passionate about my work. I remember many times people
saying, “Just leave work, just close the door and leave work at work when you go home. Don’t
think about it. It’s easy. That you obviously shouldn’t cry at work that you shouldn’t really show your
true personality Amber, you should keep it cool and keep it professional.” And it took me quite a bit
of time to unravel that because I honestly think that was terrible advice. Blocking off my sensitive
side in my own personal journey, I’ve found was blocking off some of what I know, my
superpowers, although that sounds a bit grand, but you get the drift I hope. By being a woman and
a leader, I’m able to build relationships quickly and trust quickly and by being understanding and
empathetic, you build loyalty with people. And I think also my loud laugh makes people feel
comfortable if not hurts their ears. So I think the passion that I’ve found for what I do has also
helped me never give up. And I’m not saying of course, that it’s great to play in an office, but it isn’t
the end of the world either. Some of the most incredible connections that I’ve made over years,
over seniority, job titles, countries or where I’ve needed some help. It’s been a tough time and I
was vulnerable, you know And I found that out of that a weakness becomes a strength. And I think
also as I’ve got older, I’ve been a bit braver at asking gentlemen as well if they’re feeling, how
they’re feeling about being in the workplace and sort of realize that actually we’re all human
creatures. Everybody’s got their stuff, everybody’s got this emotion. It is quite hard to separate
yourself from your professional career if you care about it. And I think ruling aligned between
human and professional is a mistake because what I’ve learned is if you embrace that the power of
the collective force is much greater. One more thing on this, I was lucky enough in 2017 to hear
Michelle Obama speak in Boston and I was massive girl crush. I was absolutely in awe of her. I
think there was part of her talk that really resonated with me. She said, “It’s as girls we’re taught to
please and be good.” And boys of the family in her family were encouraged to play and experiment
and get dirty in the yard, get the mud all over them. But the girls were taught to be polite and sweet
and look pretty. And that resonated with me because that’s also… I went to a girls school, that’s
how we were trained too. You were taught to be a crowd pleaser to display this willingness to serve
and comply. And for me, what that did was create a sort of perfection complex, something that I
still struggle with a bit at the moment. If you always want the outcome to be perfect, because
you’ve been told that everything needs to look a certain way, you’re forgetting that the grit and
getting dirty in the yard is so essential because you learn so much from failing. I had a birthday
card. This is a while ago now, but it stuck with me from one of my account directors. And it was a
quote from Eleanor Roosevelt. And she said, “Well, behaved women rarely make history.” And I
thought that’s really cheeky. But what that means to me, I really like it is that sometimes you’ve just
got to get dirty in the yard and make mistakes and learn from those mistakes and yeah. And
definitely be who you are in your career because people buy from people. So I think it’s a good
thing to let your personality shine.
Page 6 of 10
RMIT Europe
– Yeah. That is conviction. This has totally come from your own experience. Amber, that is
fantastic. Yes Second question Amber is about your satisfaction being a leader. So can you talk
about one of the moments that being a leader has given you joy and satisfaction? Is there any
moment.
– Joy and satisfaction? Yeah. Well, I think obviously business woman of the year was amazing.
Nothing quite like sitting in.. I was in a Grand Hotel lobby at… Sorry, ground floor all these tables,
we were dressed up in the sparkles. I had my team there and clients and somebody saying, “And
the grand prize Business Woman of the Year goes to Amber Williamson.” Really fell off my chair. It
was amazing. It was really amazing. And I think it was a really rigorous application process. So
there was quite a bit of thought that went behind it and those awards take a while to pull together,
but it was really worth pausing and reflecting on some of the things that I’d done, because I think
otherwise, sometimes you just so busy, you forget to recognize where you’ve been. Yeah. So that
was one moment. I think two other things, one other one is that as a company, one of the cool
things about running a company is that I get to introduce initiatives like Project Abroad, which is
where we go, pre COVID this was and we’ll get it back next year, hopefully. But I take the whole
team away to another country for a week. And I book out a mansion and we live together as a
family. So somebody has to do the cleaning on a roster. Somebody has to do the cooking.
Somebody has to drive and you learn different things about each other. And then we also do some
strategy sessions around what the company should look like and try and get everybody involved.
And they are very precious moments to me because it’s something that I thought would work. It’s
something that some people said, “Oh, do you want to be in the same place, house with your team
for a week?” But it really makes people feel like their voice counts and the fun and the laughter is
incredible that comes out of it. I think the final thing to say about being a leader is that the hardest
thing about leading is obviously the people, but the best thing about it is the people. So I hired a
young girl who’d been a bit naughty in school, and she didn’t have the results to get into university.
And she was on this sort of flat trajectory, but she’s been with me now trained up straight out of
school for six years. And she’s like a sponge. She soaks up everything. And for her learning was
about doing. She wasn’t as great as the theoretical or the study and you can’t have a fixed opinion
that everybody has to have the same sort of qualifications. You’ve got to be open to it. And this
was the best lesson for me. And watching her grow and develop has been the most incredible joy.
It really has. Yeah.
– Thanks. I think one of the satisfaction many leaders feel or get is to have the opportunity to help
to develop other people that one is the most one of the important satisfaction, I guess. Yeah.
Definitely Alan would you like to add anything?
– Very much. So the emotional intelligence, showing people your emotions and you getting
frustrated with something and being open about it considered that you’re human and everybody’s
human. So I think that the comments that you made about that were really appropriate and the
emotional intelligence, communication skills, thinking about other people, being composed, having
an even temperament, they’re all very good, but there’s something that we were talking about that
really impresses us. You’ve got the hard skills and the soft skills. Yeah. You actually remind me of
a friend of mine that was at Bosch and he did an apprenticeship. And then he worked in as an
apprenticeship and then he moved into a degree, did a degree in business and then he did a
master’s. He didn’t go to PhD because he didn’t want to work in a university. So decided not to, but
he’s since done a PhD as well. And insisted that I help him a little bit, which was interesting. And
he’s in Germany now, a lovely fellow. But nobody could pull the wool over his eyes because he
had that technical knowledge. And with that kind of respect. Now you’ve got the same thing. You’ve
got the emotional intelligence, you’ve got the soft skills which is those interpersonal skills, but
you’ve got the hard skills which is the technical knowledge. So you know the reach, the marketing
words, which tool to use to reach a certain market in the digital space and that impresses the
Page 7 of 10
RMIT Europe
people. But that is well-used to get the respect as a leader because of that knowledge. And then
you’ve got the other side and the two are rare, to have both, and you have both. And I think that
that’s why your company works so well. And obviously why you got that extremely prestigious
award as Business Woman of the Year, against enormous numbers of people that were competing
for that, and even get to the stage to being nominated is a feat in itself.
– Yeah.
– And you can’t get it twice otherwise I would have given it to you twice probably, but you cannot
get it twice and few people know that.
– Yeah.
– So I think that we have to make that combination because in the seminars, I know that Nuttawuth
is going to talk about these hard and soft skills, but your experiences is that you’ve, the other
experience is the hard skills and what’s worked with marketing and with major budgets and so
forth. And you put that together in your company and it’s working really well and helping a lot of
clients build their own companies up and make lots of money, which in the best way to share the
wealth of a society is through employment. And you’re actual creating employment through other
companies. So
